To practice resignation
by Cordeliers Club
Summary: "My brother, promoted by an astonishing leapfrog maneuver to captaincy, is leaving to dwell in secret in the wild. To live off of twigs and raw squirrels. To sleep in bramble-clotted ditches, with only a struggling badger for a pillow." Boromir and Faramir, the latter in a worse mood. Plus a little bit of Thoreau.


**To Practice Resignation**

"I daresay," said Boromir, "that you are happier to be leaving the city than anyone ought to be. Especially one so fastidious as yourself about laundered pants and hot water and the other tedious effeminacies of cleanliness," he paused, waiting for an objection. When none came he summarized neatly: "I admit I am suspicious. I suspect that you do not like us. This is a wound."

"I prefer the quiet," said Faramir with a shrug, and squinted into the sunrise.

"The quiet, he says! As if he's never campaigned. Twenty men in any surrounding are incapable of quiet - even poachers, whatever you're thinking. Where do you think these dreadful provincial masculine ditties come from, the ones about sleeping under the stars, trapping stags and distilling rugged liquor, and wives wringing their hands at home, or what have you? Think you these men compose in silence? No no, you're not headed there for quiet."

"I cannot account for the ludicrous mood you seem to be enjoying," said Faramir, with little patience. "A hint, to steer by?"

Boromir glared. "It's not ludicrous to be worried, and I'm worried. My brother, promoted by an astonishing leapfrog maneuver to captaincy, is leaving to dwell in secret in the wild. To live off of twigs and raw squirrels. To sleep in bramble-clotted ditches, with only a struggling badger for a pillow. Ludicrous, he says. Why not reconsider? There are other glorious appointments to which you are similarly junior."

"All of which you have named to me before," he said to Boromir. "Thank you. I prefer Ithilien; I had asked for Ithilien."

* * *

On his first tour with the Ithilien company, he had written:

_We are unwelcome. Ithilien is the forge, and the temple, and the archive of peace. It has been raised from the ground for worthier men in better times. We borrow from these men, and I desire that when we are finally called to our ancestors we shall leave at least Henneth Annun for them, untroubled at last. _

* * *

"You are taciturn," said Boromir. "Preoccupied about the hot water, are you?"

"Not at all," Faramir replied. "We heat it over a fire, you see, but it's rather complicated; involving variously water, branches, flint, and a pot. It would be weeks before you understood."

* * *

Boromir rode with the company as far as he could by noon, and then turned back alone.

The scenery broke into detail soon after they parted. Light on a wooded vale; the last reaches of sunlight before the sky bruised over Ephel Duath. This was, Faramir said to himself, the scenery of a man's thoughts, down to the tangled lightning, not so far to the east. Down to the sourceless thunder.

He could live from the example of this view. In the woods, he would live deliberately.

He had no secretary or adjutant among the rangers. He had only the quartermaster serving as his personal staff. Like all men in Gondor the quartermaster could write his name, and like many men in Gondor, could write no further.

When he had first arrived to his commission among the rangers he canvassed the men for a one with a good education, a legible hand and low seniority. Among so many woodsmen, hunters and poachers none was a competent secretary - but they had other robust talents, unique and valuable, and Faramir felt ashamed as though he had been haughty. He dismissed the idea with good nature, and adapted.

Weeks later he wrote to his brother, by the light of a candle and the morning moon outside the cave's dripping mouth:

_I am confident that these men can be won, for they already revere our flag and if not several of our laws, avowedly our lord steward and yourself. But if they are won it will not be because they are impressed or rewarded. _

_There are no enviable positions here, or gracious appointments, and I believe there are no favors. _

_We learn early that men have thrived in the wild far longer than they have behind stone walls. I do not know if it is time or place that produced our distraction. But I will say this: In Ithilien we are more nearly ourselves. We are more nearly ordered. _

_My point is this: I have no secretary and I shall be writing my own accounts additional to my logs and requests - I heartily expect my letters, nonmilitary etc., will suffer first and most. Pitiably, the only time for these tasks is the hour before dawn, but brother, I do not regret it and I bear always in my heart a generous relief that you are not in my place as I have seen no evidence which causes me to believe you are able to write. _

Boromir wrote back:

_Brother,_

_That is fine but I wonder if you can keep it up _

_You do uncommon love the sound of your own pen_

_I have my doubts,_

_Boromir_

The absence of appropriate officers and the geographic loneliness of the company did not seem soldierlike, but rather simplified and ancient. The rangers of Ithilien were separate from the army without being specifically aloof, but Faramir was not wary of pride among them. It was humbling enough to sleep in whatever weather nature provided, and to call to each other in the voices of birds.

But in Henneth Annun the order of things was correct and meaningful; the waterfall cleared what they drank, shielded evidence of their outpost, muffled their scarce noises. They had enough daylight and enough night. That the world should be so capable of beauty at a time as desolate as theirs, was enough to challenge the mind.

Faramir thought about the puzzle some nights, with the noise of the waterfall tempering his tendency to lose his way in his own head.

* * *

But then one midnight the rushing veil of water stopped short, leaving Ithilien silent and waiting. Something hot unfurled inside Faramir's chest and he woke up in the ringing silence, wondering if Boromir was indeed dead, or if the dream meant something more. Ithilien was tactical; it was an outpost; it was slow to receive news. Gondor could be fallen, smoldering as Rohan breaks or Mirkwood's indifference lifts too late.

This may well be the end, he thought. And then he thought that it was no surprise that the shattering of the world of men should announce itself to him unspeaking, with the lonely corpse of his brother.

But it was not.

He thought sickly of his brother's whining hounds, who like no one else, who were without their master forever. He thought of odd, old kindnesses. When the hounds were only pups Boromir had lent him two on the coldest nights of the year. When he was given his commission, Boromir had taken him to the lower circles and Faramir awoke the next afternoon to discover that his hair had been braided, he had no money, and Boromir beside him had lost an entire boot. The uselessness of these memories was staggering—but they had become the substantial whole of his brother.

He did not break his habits. So he rose to begin his daily letters.

_To Boromir son of Denethor, High Warden of the White Tower and Captain of the Guard Etc,_

_You claim to never be stunned by the brutality, waste and aggression of our age and I say finally you are right, for it is not our age alone but each before and after; waste and aggression until history closes on our race. _

_The world of men which we inhabit is old and storied. But it is not benevolent and not permanent and therefore it is not sufficient. _

_For such a one as yourself, such a one so generous with his bravery and so vastly loyal – it is not sufficient. It has never been. _

_I commend you thrice: First, I hail you to permanence not in the dreary halls of our forefathers but to I know not what – to that which is sufficient to your bravery, your generosity, and your loyalty. Second, in all due glory I bid you to myth and story and careful history. And third, I shall keep what is left behind to me. Your blindness to shades of red and green, your peevish occupation with domestic order in your own space but inability to create it, your stupidity when you make promises to girls and believe you have kept them. Your intemperance, your spitefulness and grudges, your most unfair judgments, your worst jests, your most inappropriate laughter, and apparently your slobbering hounds are now only mine. _

_Hail and farewell for the most part; but I remain to these memories _

_Your devoted brother,_

_Faramir_

_Captain of the Rangers of Ithilien_

The accounts and log he left blank and resolutely he watched the ungentle flush of dawn.


End file.
